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This little monkey is trying her hardest to train a limp-limbed human how to crack open a nut with a rock. When she realizes the human isn't making much of an effort, she looks up with an expression that says, "Wtf‽ Help me out here, hairless ape covered in fibers!"

In 2011 a crested macaque in Indonesia took a selfie using photographer David J. Slater's camera. After Slater claimed copyright of the photo, PETA sued on behalf of the monkey, claiming it was the copyright holder. But in January a federal judge tossed out the lawsuit, ruling that non-human animals are not allowed to own a copyright.

A drunk monkey turned "belligerent" at a bar in Brazil, reports Arede, grabbing a knife, pursuing patrons and climbing onto the roof.

After the tiny primate—said to live at the bar—downed a glass of rum and armed itself, firefighters had to be called to subdue it. The monkey was later released to the wild, according to the report, but was spotted menacing homeowners on the outskirts of town. After recapture, local authorities now plan to move the monkey to the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources for evaluation.
Read the rest

In the northern Indian city of Shimla, a monkey burgled 10,000 rupees from a home, climbed a tree, and threw the bills down one-by-one on passers-by. This isn't the first such incident either. Read the rest

New Delhi government officials have hired 40 young men to wear monkey masks and jump around outside the parliament buildings in an attempt to scare off macaques wreaking havoc on the grounds. From the AFP:

The NDMC, the body tasked with providing civic services, said the men were “very talented” and had been trained to “closely copy” the noises and actions of the more aggressive langurs to scare away the smaller rhesus macaques.

“They often wear a mask on their faces, hide behind the trees and make these noises to scare away the simians,” NDMC chairman Jalaj Srivastava told AFP.

China's air force has trained macaques to fight off birds nesting at an air base. The risk is that birds could interfere with the planes' engines. According to a CNN translation of a post on the People's Liberation Army Air Force site, "The monkeys are loyal bodyguards who defend the safety of our comrades." Read the rest

"With primatology, science has refused to see that females are the aggressors, the rulers, the initiators of sex. For so long, almost to a humorous extent, we have looked right past the truth; which is that the females are leaving their young, they're objectifying their mates, they're the agents of desire. The psychologist had to keep getting rid of his male monkeys because the females got bored with them!" A snip from Zoe Williams's Guardian piece on Daniel Bergner, author of What Do Women Want?, a new book about female sexual desire. Read the rest

Last fall, I posted about Marina Chapman of Braford, England who claims that as a young girl she was raised by monkeys. Chapman says that when she was four-year-old, she was kidnapped from her Colombia home and dumped in the jungle where she spent five years in the care of capuchin monkeys. Eventually, hunters found her and swapped her at a brothel for a parrot. Chapman, now in her early 60s, has written a new book about her experience. It's titled "The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys." From The Guardian:

In one of the most memorable sections of the book, she describes how she got terrible food poisoning from tamarind, and thought she was going to die. She was writhing in agony when an elderly monkey, which she now calls Grandpa, led her to muddy water. She drank the water, vomited and began to recover. After that, she says, the young monkeys befriended her. Marina observed them closely, and learned from them: how to climb trees, what was safe to eat, how to clean herself. She soon discovered that if she stood underneath monkeys carrying armfuls of bananas, they would inevitably drop a couple, and if she was quick enough she could grab them for herself. Over time, she says, the monkeys allowed her to sit in the trees with them. When they were away looking for food, she'd become lonely and would anxiously await their return…

Marina is sure she wouldn't have survived without the monkeys – thought to be capuchins, which are known to be well disposed towards humans.